1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to processing a three-dimensional (3D) video signal, and more particularly, to processing a 3D video signal in a manner that corrects first and second video signals to prevent a reduction in a 3D effect and a disparity estimation error due to a difference between the first and second video signals.
2. Description of the Related Art
Most 3D videos and 3D display devices utilize a binocular disparity. To obtain a real video, a stereo camera having two incident lenses is used. In the case of 3D computer graphics (CG), two or more virtual cameras are used to obtain videos in the same way that a real video is obtained using a real camera, and videos output from the respective virtual cameras are synthesized to make the videos suitable for a display device.
However, when a difference between first and second video signals exceeds a predetermined threshold, binocular fusion is not established. As a result, a double image is observed. Therefore, stereoscopic videos cannot be provided to users, and eyestrain is caused.
In addition, when eyestrain is reduced by correcting a disparity between objects within a video and correcting the perception of depth of the objects, a disparity estimation error may occur due to the difference between the first and second video signals. In other words, when a block-based disparity estimation method is used to estimate the disparity between the first and second video signals to correct the disparity therebetween, an estimation error occurs in the process of estimating the disparity between the first and second video signals in a part adjacent to an edge of an image of the video.
More specifically, in the block-based disparity estimation method, a first image is divided into N×N blocks and a block most similar to each of the blocks within the first image is estimated in a second image using a sum of absolute difference (SAD) or a mean of absolute difference (MAD). However, when there is, for example, a brightness difference between the first and second video signals, an error occurs when the block most similar to each of the blocks in the first image is estimated in the second image.